We're talking about different things. I'm not saying any of the defenceman with the Wranglers should have been everyday NHL'ers (even Solovyov should only have been part of bottom pair the rotation). What I am saying is that the Flames failed to leave room for any one of Kuznetsov, Brzustewicz, Grishnikov, or Poirier to get even a handful of NHL games. None of those four players are ready for full time roles but all of them needed to see limited and sheltered NHL time to continue their development. And that become impossible once they signed crap like Bean and Barrie on top of the mish mash of bottom pairing defencemen already on the roster in Miromanov, Hanley, & Pachel. There's was and still is just no room because it turns out having your entire defensive core go out with injuries at the same time almost never ever happens.
Anyway, with regards to Soloyov, folks are missing the big picture. It's not that I think or probably anyone anywhere thinks he's going to be a critical player for the Flames at any point. No, it's that he has the potential to be Kulak 2.0 and the Flames are wasting that, as they so often do. For those that don't remember the story of Brett Kulak, lucky you because it is a tale all of woe. It is a story of the penny wise, pound foolish, myopic inability of the Flames to understand the modern cap era that has plagued them under one Norman Murray Edwards.
See, Kulak was a 4th round draft by the Flames in 2012. And after spending a couple of seasons in the AHL that also just so happened to include several cups of coffee (!!!) with the Flames, he successfully made the jump in 2017-2018. Playing 71 games on the bottom pairing and putting up a unremarkable 2 goals and 6 assists, he was officially an NHL'er. More or less anyway. And then Treliving proceeded to throw it all away because otherwise there would no story here.
Kulak believed that he was a full time NHL'er and deserved a one-way contract while Treliving for reasons no one can even begin to fathom insisted on a two-way. So Kulak goes to arbitration and Kulak proceeds to win arbitration. He is awarded a one year, one-way deal at like 900K. And with his pockets full of the sourest of grapes, Treliving trades him to the Montreal Canadians for Matt Taormina and Rinat Valiev. Who? Exactly. Two pure AHL'ers that never saw a single second of ice time with the Flames, and indeed only spent one season with the farm team before moving to greener pastures.
Meanwhile, Kulak. Turns out Montreal suited him. And as young players often do, he continued to improve despite needing some more time in the AHL. By the end of his first season with the Habs, he had found a role and was re-signed to a 3 year deal at 1.85M per. And now we're getting to the close. The Canadiens were still a pretty miserable team so in Kulak's final year of his three contract, they flipped him at the deadline to the Oilers for William Lagesson, a 2nd round and a 4th round pick. Lagesson and the 4th went nowhere but the 2nd rounder? With the 62nd pick of the 2022 draft, the Montreal Canadiens are proud to select, defenceman Lane Hutson.
Yes that Hutson. The same one who's probably going to win the Calder over Dustin Wolf because of eastern bias. And also because he has 64 points in 78 games as a 21 year old rookie. Funny how things come back full circle isn't it? And meanwhile, after trading Kulak because who needed that bum anyway, Treliving proceeded to throw away a 4th for Fantenberg, a 3rd for Gustafsson, and a 4th for Forbert. Just solid GM'ing all round.
Concluding notes because I know this will all be wildly misinterpreted. No, the point is not that playing Solovyov now would guarantee the Flames a potential star down the road. Rather the point is that by playing the pump-and-dump game with their own prospects, the Flames would only give themselves the opportunity to profit off of their own picks regardless. That's literally the entire point playing guys like Solovyov, Kuznetsov, Poirier and probably even Kerins. All players who very likely have virtually no longterm future with the Flames should they ever find themselves a legit contenders one day in the future. But instead of writing them off and getting nothing out of it, think big picture for once. Give those players sheltered ice time on a bad team so they look like maybe's, then flip them for mid rounds picks or whatever. And lo and behold, that's your opportunity to find players with 1st round talent but weaknesses (i.e. size, skating, speaking Russian) that make them available in the 2nd or 3rd round. That's the point.
